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Katharine Little King

Date of Death: February 26, 2025

Date of Birth: September 18, 1940

Biography:

Katharine L. King
1940-2025

Brunswick, ME

Katharine (Kitty) King, 84 years old, passed away in hospice care on Wednesday, Feb 26th due to heart failure from lung disease. Her younger sister Meg, and daughters Eliza and Amanda, were with her for her last days. Kitty was a free spirit all her life. Her energy and enthusiasm fueled wide exploration of the world and adventures with others who were drawn to her exuberance and creativity.

Born to Dorothy Fay Little and Dwight Ralston Little Jr. on September 18, 1940, Kitty grew up in western Massachusetts with older sister Ann and younger sister Meg. Their school teacher parents taught English Literature, French, Latin, and Math, and co-founded the music camp Greenwood, which formed the basis of Kitty’s lifelong love of education, music, and the arts.

Kitty graduated from the Northfield School in 1958 and studied French literature and history at Bennington College, from which she graduated in 1962. She made friends during these early years with women who would become lifelong allies, companions for far-flung travels,  and supporters during difficult times. After completing an MA in Spanish Literature and History at Middlebury, she went as a Fulbright Scholar to Montevideo, Uruguay in 1966. She then lived in Spain for several years, and later continued her studies of comparative literature at New York University in 1969.

Kitty met Warren  King on a boating trip with her father Dwight and family friend Abby Fenn. The couple were married in 1970 in  Haydenville, Massachusetts and settled in McLean, Virginia where they had two daughters, Eliza Fay King (1972) and Amanda Bicknell King (1974). Later, after she and Warren divorced, Kitty moved into the Palisades area of Northwest DC. She generously opened her house to family members and friends doing internships or otherwise passing through DC at early stages in their careers.

An avid photographer, Kitty worked as a film archive researcher and freelance documentary film producer in the DC area, doing archival research in the National Archives, working for the local public television channel WETA, National Geographic, and several international production companies.

Kitty had a strong rapport with children that stemmed from her natural curiosity and own childlike irreverence for authority. This affinity was not only apparent in the strong relationships she built with her daughters, nieces and nephews, and the teens she tutored, but was also manifested in the themes of her early work in television.

Some of her early film projects included Footsteps, a PBS production—an exploration of parenting children with disabilities, and Bridge to Terabithia, a dramatization of the coming-of-age book by author Katherine Paterson. Kitty was also interested in stories that featured unsung figures in American history. One standout project was Silver Wings and Santiago Blue (1982), an Independent prize-winning documentary she co-produced about the Women Air Force Service Pilots of World War II, funded by the Ford Foundation and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.

Kitty was an enthusiastic scholar and became fully immersed in the worlds she researched through film production, from “Vietnam’s Unseen War”, to “Combat Cameraman”, an Emmy award winner in 1997, to the 1998 PBS Special “Inside the White House”. She also developed her love of film and photography in international settings, working as a photographic researcher for Earthwatch Institute in the Andean Region where she spent two summers carrying out field work in Cuzco, Peru and La Paz, Bolivia, locating and interviewing historians and museum curators about Andean photographs taken between 1910-1940.

Kitty’s love of travel and curiosity about other cultures continued throughout her life. She was a great instigator of and companion for adventures. She traveled all over the world both accompanied and solo; with her daughter Eliza in England, with her daughter Amanda in China and Tibet, with her sister Ann and brother-in-law Bernie in Cuba, and with her beloved friend Conny in Iceland, Spain, and France. She walked the Inca Trail with sister Meg in Peru, hiked and camped in Utah, explored the coasts of Baja Mexico in a kayak, and did yurt ski expeditions in Montana and New Mexico.

In later years, Kitty lived in Santa Fe, New Mexico pursuing her love of photography, becoming a Master Gardener, teaching ESL, tutoring teens, practicing her Spanish, as well as cross-country skiing and hiking mountains and canyons. Friends joked that it was hard to keep up with her hiking!

Kitty moved to Brunswick, Maine in 2019 to be closer to family in the northeast. During the last 5 years as she struggled with dementia, she sustained her indomitable spirits with Bowdoin music concerts, visits with family, art projects, new friends, and the natural beauty of mid-coast Maine.

For her family and friends, Kitty modeled curiosity, love of community and learning, a sense of adventure, and a willingness to follow her heart. Her strong and contagious love of life influenced all she met, and will be greatly missed by those she leaves behind.